In the Country of Tattooed Men

by Garry Kilworth

In the Country of Tattooed Men the nights feel hollow and are full of sounds of the jungle: danger is everywhere. Tattoos hide all from the prying eyes of the world. On Murderer's Walk the cards are dealt for the ultimate game. There can be only one loser: pray you do not hold the ace of spades. And from York to London, Northampton to Southend the boys are surfing Spanish style. It's exciting and exhilarating and potentially fatal Gary Kilworth has created a powerful and striking anthology of stories from the past, present and future.

Genres: Short Stories

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2011

About the author

Garry Douglas Kilworth is a historical novelist who also published sci-fi, fantasy, and juvenile fiction.

Kilworth is a graduate of King's College London. He was previously a science fiction author, having published one hundred twenty short stories and seventy novels.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't care much for the title story but there are some really effective, haunting pieces of writing in here: nihilistic children 'surfing' on trains across an uncaring dystopia, and banished murderers willingly playing a high stakes game are two (admittedly grim) highlights. I think Garry Kilworth is generally a bit edgier than my usual taste but he's seriously talented and worth a look if you're after clever, twisty short fiction.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a truly wonderful collection of short fiction. The sheer variety of material on offer here is quite something, spanning several genres, sometimes within the same story - science fiction, horror, fables, sea stories, war stories, re-imaginings of ancient history - and the range of effects within them is as broad - from the whacked-out 'Triptych', the giddy humour of 'Networks' to the more sombre and chilling 'Blood Orange'. I could pick out just about every story in this collection - there's over thirty of them - but I'll leave it at those few as excellent examples of how to write short stories. Kilworth's writing style adds a lot to these tales - he has a knack of writing about sometimes very high-brow concepts but in an almost low-brow way (I mean this as a compliment). I shall miss this book - I've had it a few years and have dipped into it every so often and now I've finished... I've a funny feeling that one day I may read this collection again.